In the midst of a crisis over an army rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which the United Nations has accused Rwanda of supporting, Rwandan President Paul Kagame allowed TIME unprecedented access into his working and daily life. Africa bureau chief Alex Perry interviewed Kagame four times over five days, at his office in Kigali, at home with his family and at a regional summit on the DRC in Kampala, for a total of seven hours. Excerpts:

TIME: I’m not here to portray you as a saint but I wonder how you assess the recent press coverage, calling you a despot and a dictator?

Kagame: I don’t want to be a saint. I don’t even attempt to be. It wouldn’t make any sense. It would divert me from my responsibilities. Concentrating on being a saint would end with me doing nothing that I was supposed to.

But reading the newspapers, watching the television, it has been really ridiculous. It has no sense of justice, fairness or logic. They are talking about the situation in Congo. But they are never talking about Congo; they are talking about Rwanda. Which betrays everything about their intention: not to pay attention to the problems of Congo, not to solve these problems, but to abuse and kick Rwanda. We have the U.N. now engaged for 10 years. They have thousands of soldiers in the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo]. The whole mission consumes $1.2 billion a year. But where are we after 10 years? How have you made not even a dent in Congo’s problems? The origin of the problem is linked to Rwanda – the FDLR [Democratic Liberation Forces for Rwanda] and genocidaires who live in the Congo and have been there now for 18 years. Have we come anywhere close to resolving that problem? Or should we just sit back and say that just by the mere presence of the international community and the UN, everything has been addressed?

These are enlightened people, people who always tell the world how well intentioned they are and how they want to see global security and fairness and justice and who are respected by all. And they are the ones who are turning everything upside down. This is the law of the jungle.

But bad as it is and shocking as it is, it is not surprising. It’s the same world we know, that we have come to try to understand how we might live in it, despite all the injustice and unfairness. It’s like living in a hurricane zone. The hurricane hits Rwanda and we take cover and hold our breath – and then it passes and we pick up the pieces and move on. We keep moving forward. We keep building our own lives.

Kagame: In March, after elections in Congo, we were being accused of being too close to Kabila. All of sudden it changed and we were No. 1 enemies. There was talk and press about how we must arrest CNDP [National Congress for the Defense of the People leader] Bosco Ntaganda. “He is dangerous. He has violated human rights to the highest level. He is a criminal.”
We said: “Wait a minute. If you are interested in this man, we do not mind or care, go and arrest him. You have forces in Congo. What does it have to do with us? Since we have Nkunda [Laurent Nkunda, former CNDP leader, detained by Rwanda in 2009 after Rwandan troops, with Congolese permission, intervened in eastern Congo to stop an earlier CNDP rebellion], we must also take this guy? Rwanda becomes a prison for fellows they throw out of Congo? Are you really saying that these people are not really Congolese but Rwandan?”

I actually called President Kabila on April 4 or 5.

I said: “We are getting a lot of people coming to us talking about the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda. Are you involved? You should be the one asking us?”

He tells me a story, how these people have also been coming to him. “I am not going to give Bosco Ntaganda to the ICC,” he says. “But Bosco Ntaganda is indisciplined and I want to arrest him.”

I said: “But why all this international outcry and pressure? Why don’t you send some officials that you trust and deal with the matter so that we don’t lose trust in what we are doing together.” Because we had already started discreetly deploying our forces. These forces were working with his people to hunt down the FDLR. We didn’t want to lose track of that.

So he sends people there. They asked if we can call the leadership of the M23 and our people accepted and they met just across the border in Rubenyi. And they [the M23] spelled out their problems. “They do not pay salaries. And we are hearing that the government and the international community wants to arrest Bosco Ntaganda. Ntaganda has flaws, but we think if they get Ntaganda, they will come for another, then another, then another. Some of our fighters have already disappeared. Is this all another way of eliminating us?” And the Congolese said: “Most of these things we are aware of and they are legitimate and we are sure the President will address it.”

Our people at that meeting kept insisting: “Address these legitimate issues. You need to avoid anything that will escalate these problems to a level where you have to turn against each other and start fighting because it is going to take us back maybe 10 years.” Because had good information that the CNDP was preparing to resist.

The next day President Kabila comes to Goma with money for the soldiers: $10 to this one, $5 to this one, $1 to this one. He says: “Now I have resolved the issues of salaries, I want Bosco put aside from the army. Understand that these issues have been resolved.” That’s when the fighting started. And I talked to Kabila again. He said: “We are seeing these things escalating.” And I said: “But President, you are the one escalating it.”

And all of a sudden an accusation comes up Rwanda is now supporting this M23, giving them weapons, uniforms. A number of them speaking English. They must be Rwandan. These stupid, wild things. And the whole world believes it. It goes to the Security Council. And the [U.N.] Group of Experts comes up with this whole thing… I’ve never seen such a stupid story like that. I do not think it’s because people are stupid. But I do think they want anything that implicates Rwanda, whether it is wrong or right. The M23 is [made up of] deserters. They go with their weapons, right? [Plus] the government soldiers were just running away and leaving weapons. The deserters were picking up what they wanted.

And the whole thing starts spinning out of control. We are trying to explain: “Look this is how this started, these are the facts.” But nobody is listening. They wanted Rwanda always to be seen as the culprit in the problems of Congo. Congo is a victim, always. The President, the government, everybody is a victim of Rwanda and Rwanda is the culprit. It doesn’t need a rational story, it doesn’t need facts or logic. It’s just how they want it.

TIME: I read it like this. You come out of the genocide, which the world did not help you with. Then the genocidaires go to Congo, and the world feeds them. Then you have chaos in Congo for 18 years, the world puts its biggest ever peacekeeping force in – and it doesn’t work. And that builds in you a very robust self-determination. The flip side of that is that you question the world system [of international intervention] and the effectiveness of, say, the U.N. and the prerogative that an organization like Human Rights Watch assumes when it pronounces on human rights in Rwanda. You question what these people do for a living. You’re questioning their existence. Or you’re certainly questioning their right to define the narrative on Rwanda. And so it becomes a very personal fight.

Kagame: That is a very big part of it. Is this what the international system has been reduced to? Another question is: What’s wrong with self-determination? I understand some of these [aid] groups on the ground try to create an environment where they become indispensable. But how about countries? How do they not see?…

When hell was let loose on Rwanda a couple of decades ago degenerating in what was termed a major genocide of the 20th century, the UN and the international community stood by idly aiding and abetting a national government that had become utterly morally/politically bankrupt and irresponsible. Paul Kagame was then a young man in his mid thirties commanding a rebellion battling to stop a genocide unleashed by a government gone mad and an irresponsible UN amp; international community. A repeat of same has been happening in D R Congo where the national government has over the years been referring to their Tutsi folks as dirty vermin to be cleansed. The world has seen defenseless Congolese Tutsi men, women and children massively killed and on occasions burned alive in great numbers in Congo! These glaringly genocidal acts are still unfolding today, and the UN mission, so massively present in Congo, has never filed a report of a genocide in the making. Apparently, in this world gone berserk and lawless, the Congolese M23 rebellion alone must shoulder the responsibility to stop genocide in Congo just as the Rwandan RPF rebellion assumed responsibility to put a stop to genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Very smart on body and in mind indeed. I reckon Rwanda is a threat to all doom sayers and genocidaires. If it means tightening our boot straps to confront this world order of injustice, we are more than ready.

Mr. President, keep up the fight after all 11m plus people are the most beneficiaries and of course neighbors that benefit indirectly.

Keep flagging it and I will keep posting it... what is it? No room for intelligent discussion and argument?.... oh dear it feels just like we're in Rwanda... no freedom of expression...

Once again:

Alex Perry's Qamp;A reads like a press release from Kagame's well-oiled PR machine (Racepoint or BTP advisers couldn't have done better)... Kagame is never really challenged on anything attributed to him... and when an attempt is made to challenge him, it is a suspiciously superficial line of questioning... what a joke.

Mr. Perry as the icing on the cake you should've dedicated your piece to the following Journalists who have either been killed or disappeared in Kagame's Army State:

Journalist Manasse Mugabo, journalist Jean-Leonard Rugambage, Reporter Dominique Makeli (who survived abduction in Kampala), Charles Ingabire (editor of Rwanda’s Inyenyeri news gunned down in Uganda), and Idriss Gasana Byiringiro (who was arrested probably these past few days while you were pampering or being pampered by Mr. Kagame.

Now you Kagame goosn go ahead and flag it, suppress it, just like it's done back home. Show Time's audience how tolerant of dissident voices you really are.

If only there was more open-minded coverage of this kind in the media, the DRC would have far less pages to hide behind the fact that it refuses to take responsibility for its many failures. Not only that, but that it instigates the very conflicts that have cost far too many innocent lives.

How do you explain that a "sovereign" country endowed with such phenomenal natural resources fails to achieve any kind upwards trajectory in their development? Could it really be that a tiny neighboring country is sucking its lifeblood, ALL of it??Or could it just be that corrupt officials will never have to answer to their people, as long as the international community continuously provides a cover for the insane amount of illegitimate business deals taking place in Congolese government offices?

How else could so many foreign investors be active and thrive in a war-torn country?

I wish the voices of those who suffer most from the ongoing senseless conflict could ask the tough questions in a very public way...

I'm really disappointed with President of Rwanda. It is so embarrassing when you read this interview and see how he responded to the questions, it is like primary school teacher who did not train properly. No wander Rwandans are suffering under his rule . Rwandans deserve better !!!! I find the interview complete rubbish. He is attacking, incoherent. That is shows his level.

Alex Perry's Qamp;A reads like a press release from Kagame's well-oiled PR machine... Kagame is never really challenged on anything attributed to him... and when an attempt is made to challenge him, it is a suspiciously superficial line of questioning... what a joke.

Alex Perry's Qamp;A reads like a press release from Kagame's well-oiled PR machine... Kagame is never really challenged on anything attributed to him... and when an attempt is made to challenge him, it is a suspiciously superficial line of questioning... what a joke.

Alex Perry's Qamp;A reads like a press release from Kagame's well-oiled PR machine... Kagame is never really challenged on anything attributed to him... and when an attempt is made to challenge him, it is a suspiciously superficial line of questioning... what a joke.

Sounds like a crazy dictator on the loose. After reading this interview, I am convinced of one thing. Human rights in Rwanda (and the region) will only deteriorate. This man has no basic decency to admit his mistakes--and there are very many. His bloated ego, saintly pontification will continue to work as a stumbling block to peace amp; reconciliation. There is need for humility, I think.

And, as for military liberators turning into dictators and right's abusers, there are way too many accounts. Every human being given absolute power has the capacity to do evil. Ironically, he does not see any problem in a fascist arrangement. The former rebel army controls the state, the businesses... and this is, according to him, how the West functions. What a deluded leader!

hate him or love him,we all agree Rwanda is better off than any Rwanda before him

facts are there:

-less corrupt

-women power

-health for rwanda citizens

-educations

-infastructures

but all of these for me are less than self respect,determination that president Kagame has taught rwandese all over the world,AGACIRO my fellows africans means the reason you have been blessed with conscious,minds to decide what is best for you with whatever you have.enough of lectures from washington,Paris,london.Dignity

No we don't all agree... - and no... Rwanda is not less corrupt. Police, Government officials, and the such are easly bribed like everywhere else... Corruptions is just as pervasive as elsewhere is just that those who are corrupt know how to hide from the outsiders.

- Women in numbers but with no voice. It's a PR and Photo Op... just that. Just look at Victoire Ingabire (as well as the women journalists who have been harassed and arrested) and one will realize how a woman with potential power will be treated in Kagame's Rwanda.

- Health, Education and Infrastructure works for those with money to pay for it... if you don't have money these services are substandards like everywhere else, unless of course is for PR or Photo Op purposes.

AGACIRO is just starting... whereas I doubt anyone will challenge Kagame on how the money will be used, I have a pretty good idea who, in the end, will benefit from such entreprise.

U buze icyo atuka inka aravuga ngo dore urucebe rwayo! Ntagitangaza kuba Long saying that because I think u're just wrong no clear research u've done! and then even Jesus turned back to heaven without convincing Abafarizayi! kuko he wasn't there to convince them but doing the will of his Father! then even our his lovely EXCELLENCY is not there to convince the enemies of RWANDA but doing his best for rwandes!

God bless Rwanda and God bless all of u enemies of rwanda may u know in ur hear that u're in the wrong side!

Very telling that the one woman Long Meingfah mentions here is terrorism suspect Victoire Ingabire - why don't you tell us about her side-kick Joseph Ntwangundi, a self confessed genocider killer who murdered students at his school. Or Ingabire's mother, famous in Butamwa for killing pregnant women at the health centre where she worked during the genocide. We understand your angst - your are concerned about your illustrious friends.

Well i don't know what you read and where you go it from but one things for sure that he metnioned was people with a mindset like yours... and I understand because what you want to think of Rwanda the region and the President himself is what you are talking about... Talking about Humulity I think that should Apply to you too how you use your words and and how you present your views. I wonder what Nkunda Rwanda means but from my point of view your name should never have anything to do with Rwanda becuase just like you said if given power you destroy the entire region.

Congratulations to TIME and Mr Perry! I wonder why other western media fail to make such an effort to get the other side of the story and feed us with a cocktail of lies about Congo- Rwanda.

I think Africa needs Presidents like Mr Kagame who works for their population (I just read that the children mortality in that country has been reduced drastically while the DR Congo takes the last place in the world in the matter). Keep up the good work Mr President, for sure, you'll get out of this mess strengthened!

You can only congratulate the Time because he fails to ask some logical questions. you only have to come from Mars to ignore the implication of Rwandan government in Congo's soil. The government of Kagame is beneficiary of the war the in the Democratic Republic of Congo to boost his economy.

"The Rwandan Government has constantly denied that Congolese resources are being plundered, but a letter from the National Bank of Rwanda sent to the author shows that Rwanda last year exported seven times more coltan than it produced. The same is true for diamonds and gold, and the author estimates that Rwandan forces last year earned at least US$ ¼ billion from the exploitation of Congolese minerals." This is the fact not the assertion!

Kagame is happy to see Congo in trouble for his self gain, but I assure you things are going to turn around for the people of Congo. I wonder why Kagame is so supportive of M23. Further more, you are talking about of Genocide in Rwanda but what about the 8,000,000 of people killed in the Eastern of Congo? Kagame is in a hot sit, soon or later is going to pay it all.

Mr Okonda, Rwanda is not pillaging DR Congo. It is Kagame, and his clique who are pillaging nad perpatrating attrocities tantamount to covert genocide in Congo, as well as in Rwanda. The only people who are benefiting from that shame are Tutsis mainly from Uganda and backers of Kagame's ethnocentric dictatorial regime. Even Tusi survivor of genocide are being impoverished, without saying horrible poverty hutus are surviving in due to ethnic impovershment policy of Kagame and RPF.

To Imenagitero, Rwanda is not experiencing any economic growth. If you are familiar with Rwanda poverty is raging. rwanda is under voodoo economic growth and reports are only sexed up. if Rwanda is economically growing, why Kagame refused to WB in 2010 to conduct independent investigation?

this article really is a pleasant surprise - it is extremely rare to see a mainstream publication like TIME give an African leader space to express his views and share information that hasnt been confused or shaped by ppl with interests that arent very clear but certainly dont favour the ones being discussed. i have gotten alot from the perspectives shared in this inteview - a job well done i think, would like to see more of this!

but one thing - why the title "The Iron Man" in the print edition? i see nothing in the interview that justifies this headline???